The Butterfly Clasp
by JuliAngelFace
Summary: Corrine's life as a 1940s socialite turned 1950s housewife and the madness that builds up leading to the events of Flowers in the Attic.
1. Chapter 1

All my life I felt different, and not in the quirky aspect but of a sinister kind. One would never guess because of how I look. You could say I'm gilded. On the outside I am golden. I appear as that all American girl that graces coca cola ads, bright and beautiful, shining like the sun, but inside is a hollow darkness, void of life, this bleak emptiness. I have no soul. You can only love me at a far distance because like the sun, if you stare for too long you'll be blinded and if you dare get close to me I will burn you.

I learned early how to pretend, how to play make believe and fool others including myself into seeing this illusion of me as perfect and believing in this false delusion of me being normal. The only talent I ever had was the ability to believe the lies I make up as the truth, the a bility to rewrite memories. When I lie, I sound like I'm telling the truth, because at that moment, and in my current mind, I am. I can delude myself like no other into seeing only what I want to see and creating imaginary foes to put all the blame on. I have the gift of blissful ignorance.

My greatest problem in life is people expecting too much from me. They expect more than too much, they expect me to be their prize, to adorn their lives and live up to their unreachable fantasies. I can't recall a day where I wasn't told how much of a blessing I was, or how I brought sunlight to the family, or how I saved my father from despair. Everyday I'm told I'm perfect when I'm anything but perfect and everyday I fear the day when they discover that and disown me.

I'm not special, I have no special talent except for embroidery, no high intelligence judging by my inability to score higher than a 'C' in every subject, and certainly no glowing personality. The only thing I have going for me is beauty, beauty that's soon to reach its peak and fade away, beauty that I obsessively slave to attain and maintain. Oh I do have money, but technically I really don't have money because it's my father's money and having it means I can't have a life of my own.

Another expectation I can't reach. My father expects me to always be his, he truly believes he owns me, to him I'm his most prized possession that he'll never let anyone take let alone touch. He will never let me get married, no, I'm expected to be forever virginal, untainted.

At home I'm not allowed to do anything, I can't go anywhere on my own without my mother, I can't learn to drive, I can't even have my own private bank account, anyone I want to invite over has to be approved by my father and no one meets his standards. To have to ask permission for the most basic privileges every man is entitled to is demeaning. I was trapped in that godforsaken house!

I love my father but I also fear him, it's like he's two different people and at the flip of a dime he can change. It's constant walking on eggshells. One moment he's hugging me and lovingly stroking my hair calling me his princess and the next he's tightly gripping my hair bashing my head against the wall and calling me a vindictive whore. He scares me. Sometimes he'll violently yank me me out of bed in the middle of the night, yelling at me, falsely accusing me of undermining him and plotting run away with some boy. It always ends with him forcing me to kneel on rice and pray before him till the crack of dawn. Thought lately the night raids have stopped ever since my father installed straps on my bed not just to keep me in place but to keep my hands from roaming. The straps were my mother's idea, they were her fourteenth birthday present to me.

I refuse to feel any shame, I could apoligize as much as my mother needs me to, I could even shed tears as I grovel before her, but deep down I didn't feel sorry for myself and of my actions, I only felt anger that she caught me. I am what I am, and if that is a crime then so be it.

My mother inffuriates me to no end, but not in the way you think. I don't understand her, I refuse to. She acts like a noble victim, she endures the worst of my father's abuse, but unlike me and my brothers, it is a choice for her. She has her own money, a business degree, talent in management, she could make a wonderful life for herself free from my father, and yet she stays and obeys. My mother just loves being the victim so damn much. My mother is happy so long as she could be self rightoeus and adorn herself with the shame of other's to compliment her self proclaimed innocence.

My mother claims to be religeous, a truly devout Catholic, which is complete poppycock. She doesn't love God, she loves using God as an excuse to smite whoever makes her feel insecure, she enjoys twisting the word of God to fit her own selfish agenda, to her the bible is just a giant list of reasons to punish people. She's as good a Christian as the Marquis De Sade.

Myself, well, I'm pure in body but in my mind lies wicked carnal desires no pious God-fearing girl should have. The yearnings run through my mind and body every waking moment. I'd do anything fulfill my fantasies and would happily surrender everything for a man who can reach my own expectations. I want torrid and unbridled lust of the most forbidden kind.

And then came Christopher. He was gentle and kind, beautiful as Adonis, young and vibrant. He was my uncle, and I didn't care. I wanted lust and instead I got love.

It didn't feel wrong to love him, it felt like it was pre-destined, as if it were instinctual. There's a brightness in him, a warmthness I never knew. When I'm with him I feel like I am where I belong. It's a familiarity I cannot describe, like I've known him my whole life. We have this bond between us that I can't have with anyone else. With him I felt like I could achieve anything, even perfection.

It wasn't planned, it wasn't a plot against my father, it was love pure and simple. Christopher had to be mine and mine alone and the thought of another girl having him and not me was enough to kill me.

I could have had any man in the world and I had planned on marrying a rich man who would take me far away from my father. Christopher wasn't part of my plan, he was never suppose to come into my life. He was the opposite of what I wanted for myself and I didn't care. I didn't care that he was my uncle, I didn't care that he was poor, I didn't care that being with him meant that we'd be disowned and penniless. It didn't matter because he was all I needed and wanted and I'd rather have just him and only him with every hardship than have my father's love and all the riches in the world. As long as he was with me, everything would be all right.

Of all the regrets I may have in life, Christopher will never be one of them. My mother could switch my back a thousand times over, my father could damn me to hell and back, and I will never bow my head down in shame and deny my love for Christopher.

I didn't seduce him and he didn't take advantage of me. For three years he didn't lay a hand on me, for three years we were just very close friends, and all we did in the three years we were together was talk, and when we were away from eachother in our own schools we wrote one another. Never underestimate the power of personal letters. Our letters started as friendly coorespondences of a few sentences and soom a few sentences turned into a few pages.

It's not a seduction when you don't use your body, it's not a seduction when it takes three years to win that person over, no it's devotion, utter dedication. It was not easy, it was work; I worked hard to get his love, harder than he worked to get his degree. Each love letter was an essay I had to do intensive research to write and each conversation was a memorized script I painstakenly rehearsed the day before. Oh how I studied, oh how I crammed, and oh how I did my homework to learn not only act like but to become his perfect vision of a wife. I didn't seduce him because men as good as him can't be seduced, not by the body. I had to change myself, I had to become all that I wasn't.

Christopher made me feel like I can be normal and have that picture perfect suburban life I see in magazine ads and use to play act in my dollhouse as a little girl. I could have a little family just like the dolls I owned, it'll be just the three of us, father, mother, and baby, and we'll call ourselves The Dollangangers.

Christopher is worth all the suffering in the world because he is the only person in this world I am capable of loving more than myself. Loving Christopher will be my salvation.

The problem with finding salvation is the sacrifices you have to make to attain it and realizing that salvation is not at all satisfaction, it's starvation.

To a sheltered seventeen-year-old girl running away with the boy of your dreams is the ultimate fantasy, the most romantic of ideas. In my mind I had pictured us driving off in the sunset to Mrytle beach and making love on the sand as many times as our bodies would allow, just like in the movies.

Trouble is, there's no such thing as honeymoon when you're running away with only five-hundred-dollars to your name.

The first thing we did wasn't making love in the nearest meadow, it was driving to a used car dealership and trading down my sixteenth birthday present for for some cheap ugly lemon with scratchy stained seats. Our first romantic meal as a couple was tuna melts and crackers at a rest stop diner in a dirty booth with gum under the table. Our first night we stoped at a motel, not a hotel, a motel, a motel with shared communal bathrooms and outside showers. Worst of all Chris was too tired from driving all day to make love to me that night. I couldn't even have that.

It only got worse, oh how it got worse. My morning sickness decided to kick in the next day and I threw up in the car and all over my favorite silk dress. Chris didn't know I was pregnant and he got a little mad that failed to divulge that tiny detail.

That was when he changed. He wasn't fun after that, he was all serious and even more of a tightwad. We had like nine months give or take, plenty of time, no need to worry now, it's not coming right away. But no, we have to worry now, we have to make decisions now, we have to figure out a plan now. Nevermind that now is our time, ours and ours alone to go out and live and experience all that's out there. We owe it to ourselves to be happy and free regardless of consequence. Why can't he understand that?

The pregnancy wasn't that much of an accident, I was supposed to get a diaphragm, but it was far too risky to visit a gynocologist to be fitted for one and then have to pick it up at the pharmacy, imagine the scandal if someone I knew were to see me, I'd be just mortified, they'd think I was that kind of girl. Besides, a baby from Christopher is a blessing. The thought of having a part of him growing inside me under my heart was too beautiful to resist. A perfect baby that would bond us forever, how could I not want that?

I've never been around a baby in my whole life, not one. I've always had such a curiosity about motherhood, I know absolutely nothing about it. I've never even seen an actual pregnant woman belly and all. I really want to experience having a baby, the euphoria of giving birth to cooing baby who will forever love me at first sight and dote on me. I'll dress the baby up in such adorable outfits that would coordinate with mine and we'd stroll in the park together, him in a bright yellow Silver Cross pram that compliments my golden salon curled hair and the pastels I wear, and everyone will stare in envy of me. I can't wait to be a mother, I'd be the most beautiful mother of them all.


	2. Chapter 2

After driving around for three weeks I finally talked him into settling down in Boston. We lived in an old hotel till Chris could find a job. He'd leave at eight and I had nothing to do but sit and wait. Luckily there was no kitchen so I wasn't expected to cook, but we didn't have our own bathroom which was very inconvenient when you have a baby constantly kicking on your bladder. I didn't know what to do with myself all day, I'd just sit and brush my hair while listening to the radio, and sometimes when I was brave I would walk four blocks to the library and read their selection of old magazines.

I can't do much without money, not what I am most good at, spending money. We can't spend any money because we have to give most of our money to the stupid doctor I don't need.

I was excited about living in the city until I looked in the mirror. I looked terrible, I looked like...I couldn't say it. My hair was limp and greasy, my face and body was bloated, and to my greatest horror my once beautiful flawless skin had broken out with acne. I can't have people see me like this and I especially don't want Chris to see my body like this.

I felt dead inside. My clothes stopped fitting and I had to start wearing shapeless maternity clothes from the thrift store, the kind of maternity clothes that sucked all the sexuality out of a woman and made her into a sexless old maid.

I stopped going out completely, I'd spend hours in front of the mirror either picking at my face or trying to get my hair to curl again like it used to. I felt like a hideous monster, this must be how The Elephant Man felt.

Chris being loving and supportive only made it worse, I felt like I had nothing to offer him and that he was going to leave me if I dare let him see my body now I could't even let him touch me, I didn't want him to touch me.

My stupid doctor tells me this massive weight gain is normal. NORMAL?! What does he know? This isn't normal it's grotesque! And he wants me to gain more weight. I would rather die than gain another pound. If I gain just one more pound I swear will slit my wrists with Chris's razor. I don't want this baby anymore, not when it's going to ruin my whole body, it's not worth it. I don't want to turn into my mother, I don't want to become an ugly old hag in black who nobody loves.

I'm only eighteen, I should be vibrant, thin, and beautiful, I shouldn't be this. I don't know what I want but I do know what I don't want, and I don't want this.

I only got bigger and bigger to my horror despite all that I did to keep myself at the same weight. I was fatter than that fat girl, Louise Peguese, I knew in school who I would make fun of on behind her back. The last thing I wanted to be in this world was a fat sad sack like her.

Chris finally got a sales job and we got to rent an apartment, a duplex, but at least we had our own bathroom we didn't have to share with anyone.

But his sales job meant he was away from me longer and I was to be left alone for days with nothing to do. I felt like I was being punished.

I finally made a friend, a fellow pregnant wife left at home, my neighbor Rosalind. We had nothing in common but she was less attractive than me and it made me feel slightly better about myself. Her husband was a sailor off fighting that damn war we had to ration for.

I was nothing like her, she was born poor and was a bit trashy where I am of wealth and fine breeding, but I would never tell her that to her face. We would spend all day together drinking and talking about our lost youth and boredom.

There would be no way I'd survive if it weren't for black market gin. Chris never knew, he doesn't drink at all because his stepdad was a drunk. He doesn't understand that drinking socially does not make someone a lush, it just makes that person fun and adventurous.

I would kill to be able to go to parties again and be the belle every girl envies and every guy couldn't resist.

Being fat and with child was a living hell I wanted out of. I felt like I was trapped, being suffocated in complete isolation. My new life as Christopher's wife wasn't supposed to be like this!

Just when I tried to end it all with a coat hanger, my water broke. Luckily Rosalind was there to call an abulence to take me to the hospital. There, they put an oxygen mask over my face and told me to count to ten and suddenly all the pain was gone as I drifted off to a heavenly place where I could float away from everything and everyone.

When I woke up that crisp November morning, I was greeted by Christopher holding my beautiful, perfect, blue eyed baby boy. I now had two Christophers to love me.

I stopped talking to Rosalind, I couldn't have my beloved son subjected to her poverty, she was a bad influence. I lost all the weight and my hair and complexion returned to its natural vibrant state thank to Christopher getting a raise and now having money to pamper myself like I used to. I dressed my Chris like the little prince he was. I adored him to no end, except when he was messy and fussy, but he was like me and just needed a little gin on his gums to calm down.

Rosalind and her baby moved out after her husband was killed and they got evited. She should have been better with money and maybe she wouldn't have to move back in with her mother.

Our new neighbor was a godsend, an old widow named Marceline who loved babies and was thrilled to watch Chris for me anytime and was more than happy to change his diapers and feed and bath him for me when I was out at the movies or dancing at a canteen or cabana. Life was great.

I no longer missed Christopher when he was away traveling, in fact, I enjoyed his absence and dreaded his return where I'd have to lie and pretend I was a devoted hands on mother who did nothing but tend to baby Chris like a selfless madonna.

On the nights Christopher was home I would forcibly put Chris to sleep with a little cloth dipped in Robotussin for him to suck on and I would spike Christopher's food with a pick me up to get him energetic.

That way I could have Christopher all to myself and alert to engage in my every sexual fantasy all night long. Christopher thought we were trying to have another baby but I had mused up the courage to get a diaphram so I wouldn't have to be burdened with another baby.

Sex was amazing now that we were older and more experienced. Before we had to be quick and quiet, sneaking around in a hurry, now we were married with a place of our own, a well behaved baby, all the time to indulge in ourselves and the freedom to be as loud and wild as rutting animals in heat. I would teach him all the things I learned reading smut and he was a great student and fast learner.

I can't explain how I felt wearing the risqué lingerie my father would have a heart attack over. It was this sort of power I relished in, this ability to make grown men weak beneath me and trembling like a fawn. I loved feeling his muscles clench before he lost control and gave in to me.

I was not a blushing little girl who just laid on her back and waited to be took, I was a woman with wanton desires, I take what I want when I want and to hell with being a godly woman of chaste who denies herself pleasure. I am not my mother, I will not be some frigid cold woman ashamed of her own sexuality, forever sexually frustrated and miserable with herself.

There is no greater joy than to be twenty-one, young and beautiful, living in a bustling big city full of dreams, with a world of endless possibilities before her and a knock out figure to entice with. It seemed like it would last forever and that nothing stood in my way to pure happiness.

Then Cathy came, like the dark cloud that she was, to steal all my sunshine away...


End file.
